Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama

“Pastor McKee, do you think we really have a ghost up there in the sanctuary? I mean, does the church even believe in ghosts? Because – if there is a ghost – maybe it's related to this drowning?”

It sounded so ridiculous when she said it out loud.

“Tell me, lassie, have you paerchance heard any local tales o' sea folk?” he said out of the blue.

“Uh . . .” Hester wondered where he was going with this.

“I've haerd tell they live en the deepes' par' of our own bay.”

“Why do you ask?”

He shrugged and shifted his feet, preparing to sit in the chair again. She held his arm while he lowered himself into it. “Jus' tha' tales o' ghosts and tales o' sea folk paersist in the world. Even an educated paerson mus' wonder ef thar's a reason for et.”

“Monstrous Beauty” is another book I came across on the shelves of my local Half Price Bookstore. I hadn't ever heard of it or the author before, but the cover was stunning and the summary on the back sounded just dark and interesting enough to catch my attention. If I remember correctly, this wasn't long after I had read “Fathomless”, so I'll admit I was probably on a bit of a dark mermaid story binge at the time, though I obviously didn't read it until much later.

Hester Goodwin has pledged herself never to fall in love or marry. Most especially, she will never have children. Hester has made this decision because of her family history. After all, if all the women in the last one hundred fifty years of your family history had died within a week of giving birth to their first child, you would be concerned too. Though she definitely has feelings for her best friend, Peter, she suppresses them and pulls away. She can't fall in love. She can't be talked out of it. She doesn't want to die.

Then Hester meets Ezra, a strange and intoxicating man whom she only ever sees on the beach, and suddenly all of her resolve seems to dissipate. He claims he can help her, that her troubles sound more like a curse than a genetic fault and perhaps the two of them can solve it together.

As she begins to look into her family's past, Hester begins to uncover the pieces of a tragedy that took place long ago and may be the cause of her curse, as well as the rumored hauntings that have taken place in the church and its graveyard, where she used to play as a girl. It's up to her to uncover a terrible truth and set to rights that which was tampered with long ago, that is, if the forces that be will let her do it.

The further I sank into this book, the more surprised I was that I hadn't heard of it before. A beautifully written tale that can be dark, tragic, thrilling, and hopeful all in one excellent novel? I was smitten from the start.

I cannot get over how good this book managed to be and I will definitely be singing its praises for months. The reader is caught up along with the protagonist in the mystery that surrounds her and the terrifying adventures she must face in order to get to the bottom of things. Hester is fierce and resourceful and an all-around believable character that I enjoyed getting to know within the pages.

If you're looking for a good, dark fantasy preferably containing mermaids and other supposed myths, this is the book you need on your shelf. I suggest finding it as soon as you can manage.

Rating: ~★★★★★~

She struggled and writhed as the thing switched positions, easily hooking an arm around her neck and swimming her down – headfirst, faceup, deeper and deeper – in a death-spiral version of a lifeguard rescue. It was a distinctly humanlike arm that held her, and Hester clutched it with both ahnds, afraid of the speed, and afraid it would strangle her. The rhythmic thumping and pumping beneath her was the unmistakable action of a powerful tail, propelling them to the depths of the bay. Hester kept her eyes closed, but she knew without seeing the creature: it was a mermaid.

They were real.

McKee was right; E.A. Doyle was right.

And Hester was about to be killed.

Forgive My Fins by Tera Lynn Childs (Fins, #1)

"Let me get this straight," he says, recovering himself. "I'm turning into a mermaid because I kissed you?"
"I don't remember asking you to kiss me," I retort.
He scowls and I regret my snide remark. He didn't ask for any of this to happen, either. There was no way he could have known what he was getting himself into.
"Technically I explain, "you're turning into a merman."

Forgive My Fins was another book I picked up a few weeks ago when I was getting ready for Teen Book Con. Tera Lynn Childs was there and I was hoping to read one of her novels before seeing her there. As you can tell, I didn't manage to read it beforehand, but I did finally finish it.

When Lily discovers that she is half human, she decides to live ashore for a time, living with her late mother's sister and attending high school, maybe even finding that special boy that she is going to spend the rest of her life with. After all, if she wants to inherit the throne from her father, she has to have bonded by her eighteenth birthday and that is quickly approaching.

High school is tough for a girl who's half mermaid, half human, but she loves exploring this part of herself. Likewise, she loves Brody, the boy she's been working up the courage to share her feelings and her secret with. Only, when she finally gets close, he rejects her and breaks her heart.

Quince, the boy next door who has done everything in his power to irritate and humiliate Lily, takes this as his cue to step in. He devises a plan with her so that she can win Brody, though he's outspoken in his belief that Brody is not worth a second of her time. But the plan backfires and Quince steps in to be her "knight in shining armor" and kisses her in Brody's place.

Only, Quince didn't know she was a mermaid. And he certainly didn't know that kissing her meant bonding to her and it jumpstarted the process into his becoming mer too. Now, they have to get back to  Thalassinia and fast, before the change and bond are permanent and the two of them are stuck together forever.

Forgive My Fins was, to me, one of those books in which the ending is predictable, but in a totally unpredictable way that makes it totally worth reading. It was a fun, light tale about mermaids and learning who to trust that I really enjoyed reading. It's definitely what I would call a beach read, quick and playful, with some great scenes and interesting characters that I really enjoyed getting to know.

All in all, it's not the best book I've ever read, but one that I'm glad I did. I'll definitely have to keep an eye out for the second book in the series. I'd love to find out what happens to Lily next.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

As if I'd conjured him with magic, the door above swings open and Quince is filling the doorway with his leather-jacket-clad self. 
I practically sag with relief . . . until I sense the fury pounding through his blood. He felt my fear and now he's here to protect me. By any means.
This can't end well for anyone.

Fathomless by Jackson Pearce (Fairytale Retellings, #3)

Maybe you have to know about your past to look to your future, to make a decision about it.

[Click here to see my review of book 1: Sisters Red and book 2: Sweetly]

After absolutely falling in love with the first two books in Jackson Pearce's Fairytale Retellings series, I was admittedly a little scared to read the third. What if I didn't like it? What if it didn't live up to the greatness of the first two? I had the utmost faith in the fact that she could make this one just as good as her first two, but what if she hadn't?

Well, my fears were totally unfounded. Fathomless turned out to be just as beautifully written and compelling as its counterparts. I'm already itching to get my hands on Cold Spell, the fourth book, which doesn't come out until November of this year. How will I ever manage to wait that long?

Celia, Anne, and Jane Reynolds are a set of triplets with surprising powers. Anne can see the future, Jane can see the present, and Celia sees only the past. The youngest in their family, they were sent off to boarding school after the death of their mother. Since then, they've really only had each other, having lost contact with each of their brothers and the father who no longer remembers them (due to his Alzheimer's). They've always known that they're stronger together, but lately Celia has been feeling more and more like she is the odd one out. It's Jane and Anne who are the identical ones. She's just the one that somehow got thrown into the mix to complete the set. She believes that her power is useless, that her siblings received the ones that they could do something with whiles she only gets memories, but that's before she meets Lo.

Lo is an ocean girl. She used to be human, but now she lives under the water with her sisters, other ocean girls who have forgotten their pasts and bide their time until the day the angels who brought them here pluck them out of the sea and take them away to be with them. When they first arrive, though, many of the girls just want to go back. They want to be human again. According to the legends of the old ones, there's only one way to do that: they must get a human to love them and then drown them, taking the human's soul for their own.

When Jude, a hapless musician falls into the ocean one night, Lo decides that she doesn't want him to drown. She has tried drowning a boy to restore her soul and knows it won't work. Instead, she fights her sisters to save him, bringing him back to the shore with Celia's help. Celia touches Lo and discovers her real name, the one she forgot. This awakens a longing within Lo to remember what she was before she was an ocean girl.

Celia agrees to help her recover her memories and suddenly feels like her power has a purpose--that it can finally help someone. But this tentative friendship she's made is fraught with dangers and Jude may not be the only one in danger of drowning now.

In Fathomless, Pearce once again proves that she has an imagination of gold. And she has certainly struck gold with this series of retellings. I cannot express enough how much I adore this beautiful series and everything in it. Filled to the brim with the same strong bonds I have admired in the beginning, as well as another great dose of the magical and mythical beings we've seen in the first two novels, these books are positively addicting and the kind you'll want to pester everyone you know to read so they can enjoy it just as much as you did.

What are you waiting for? Go get this book immediately! Get the whole series! And pray the Jackson Pearce never ever stops writing.

Rating: ~★★★★★~

"Because there's nothing there. There's no future between you and the girl- the water girl. Naida. Whatever she is."
"We stop being friends-" 
"You're not listening," Anne snaps, and there's so much worry in her voice that I feel cold. "There's nothing there, Celia. There's no future because there's no 'you and her.' It's blank."
"What does that mean?" 
Anne sighs, shakes her head. "What have you gotten yourself into?" she mutters before looking me in the eye. "It means," she says, voice serious, "either she dies or you do."